과연 나 자신은 나를 잘 알까? Others may know us better than we know ourselves, study finds

자신의 지능 매력, 

창의력, 희망사항 등에 대해 잘 몰라 

진심 말해줄 사람 필요

source actscommunitychurches.com

edited by kcontents 

케이콘텐츠 편집

    고대 그리스의 철학자 소크라테스는 델포이 신전에 새겨진 ‘너 자신을 알라’는 경구를 인용하며 사람들이 자신에 대해 성찰할 것을 갈파했다. 사람들은 소크라테스를 아는지 관계없이 누구보다 자신을 잘 안다고 생각한다. 심리학자들은 ‘나를 가장 잘 아는 사람은 바로 나’라고 믿어 왔다. 

그러나 미국 세인트루이스 워싱턴대학교 심리학과 연구팀은 “사람은 스스로의 감정은 잘 느끼지만 스스로 좋아지기를 바라는 지능, 매력, 창의력이나 희망사항 등의 특징은 남보다 더 모른다”는 연구결과를 내놨다. 

연구팀의 사이먼 바지르 박사는 자신이 개발한 ‘자아-타인 인지 불균형(SOKA)’ 실험을 165명의 자원자에게 실시했다. 연구팀은 실험 참가자들에게 몇 개의 다른 일을 주고 IQ(지능지수) 테스트를 실시했다. 

또 누가 지도자의 자질을 가졌는지 보기 위해 집단 토론을 실시했고, 누가 엄격한 척 행동하는 사람인지 보기 위해 좁은 방에서 사회적 스트레스 테스트를 실시했다. 또 사람들 앞에서 자기 몸의 장단점에 대해 말하게 했다. 

연구팀은 모든 실험이 끝난 뒤 각각의 참가자들에게 40개의 성격 평가 양식을 통해 스스로와 다른 참가자들을 평가하게 했다. 그 결과 사람들은 자신의 생각, 느낌, 슬픔, 걱정 등의 내면적 특징은 정확히 평가했지만 밖으로 드러나는 지능, 매력, 창의성 등의 외향적 특징은 다른 사람들보다 덜 정확하게 평가하는 것으로 드러났다. 

사람들은 대체로 자신이 원하는 것과 원하지 않는 것에 대해서도 남들보다 잘 알지 못하는 것으로 나타났다. 바지르 박사는 자신의 일부 특징을 다른 사람보다 더 잘 알지 못하는 이유에 대해 “모든 사람은 늘 매력적이고 지적으로 보이고 싶어 하기 때문에 자기 객관화에 실패하는 것”이라고 설명했다. 

친구가 똑똑하지 못한 것은 상관없지만 자신이 똑똑하지 못하다는 것은 스스로에게 위협적인 요소이기 때문에 스스로 객관적으로 판단하지 못한다는 것이다. 이런 내용은 미국 과학 전문지 사이언스데일리 등에 실렸다. 

코메디닷컴 권순일 기자 (kstt77@kormedi.com)

Others may know us better than we know ourselves, study finds

source sciencedaily.com

Washington University in St. Louis 

Since at least the days of Socrates, humans have been advised to "know thyself." And through all the years, many, including many personality and social psychologists, have believed the individual is the best judge of his or her own personality.

Credit: iStockphoto/Stas Perov

Since at least the days of Socrates, humans have been advised to "know thyself." And through all the years, many, including many personality and social psychologists, have believed the individual is the best judge of his or her own personality.

Credit: iStockphoto/Stas PerovCloseSince at least the days of Socrates, humans have been advised to "know thyself." And through all the years, many, including many personality and social psychologists, have believed the individual is the best judge of his or her own personality.

Now a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis has shown that we are not the know-it-alls that we think we are.

Simine Vazire, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, has found that the individual is more accurate in assessing one's own internal, or neurotic traits, such as anxiety, while friends are better barometers of intellect-related traits, such as intelligence and creativity, and even strangers are equally adept as our friends and ourselves at spotting the extrovert in us all, a psychology domain known as "extroversion."

"I think that it's important to really question this knee-jerk reaction that we are our own best experts," says Vazire. "Personality is not who you think you are, it's who you are. Some people think by definition that we are the experts on our personality because we get to write the story, but personality is not the story -- it's the reality. So, you do get to write your own story about how you think you are, and what you tell people about yourself, but there still is reality out there, and, guess what? Other people are going to see the reality, regardless of what story you believe."

Personality, Vazire says, is pervasive in many things that we do -- clothing choice, bedroom arrangement, Web site and Facebook profiles, for example. "Everything you touch you leave a mark of your personality," she says. "You leave traces unintentionally. You give off hints of your personality that you don't even see yourself."

Vazire's study is published in the February 2010 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Personality is comprised of the underlying traits that drive behavior, Vazire says. The model she developed is called the self-other knowledge asymmetry (SOKA) model. To test it she called upon 165 volunteers who were given a number of different tasks. To obtain an objective measure of behavior, they took an IQ test; they all participated in a group discussion called a leaderless group discussion to see who emerged as the take-charge individual; and they took a Trier social stress test, in which trained experimenters with faux stern demeanors filmed participants in a narrow, cramped room, as they gave a two-minute public speaking exhibition on the topic of what I like and don't like about my body. A sweat-inducer for many. Each participant also graded group members and him or herself on a 40-trait personality rating form.

Her model correctly predicted that self ratings would be more accurate for internal things, such as thoughts and feelings, sadness and anxiety, for example, than the ratings of friends and strangers.

"You probably know pretty well your anxiety level, whereas others might not be in the position to judge that because, after all, you can mask your inner feelings," Vazire says. "Others, though, are often better than the self in things that deal with overt behavior."

The self has difficulty in accurately judging itself in areas that are desirable or undesirable, what she calls evaluative traits. Intelligence, attractiveness, creativity are hard for the self to judge objectively because "there is so much at stake, meaning your life is going to be so much different if you are intelligent or not intelligent, attractive or not. Everybody wants to be seen as intelligent and attractive, but these desirable traits we're not going to judge accurately in ourselves."

The self is better at judging friends' intelligence than its own "because it's not that threatening to us to admit that our friends aren't brilliant, but it's more threatening to admit to ourselves that we're not brilliant."

Take attractiveness and your mirror. "We look in the mirror all the time, yet that's not the same as looking at a photo of someone else," Vazire says. "If we spent as much time looking at photos of others as we do ourselves we'd form a much more confident and clear impression of the other's attractiveness than we would have of our own. Yet after looking in the mirror for five minutes we're still left wondering, 'Am I attractive or not?' And still have no clue. And it's not the case that we all assume that we're beautiful, right?"

For some personality traits, she says we miss the point if we look at thoughts and feelings and ignore the behavior. Bullies, for instance, fit the SOKA model, because their thoughts and feelings tell them they're insecure and want to be liked and admired, which is not a horrible, nasty notion. They cannot see their behavior as nasty and horrible, though, because their thoughts obscure their actions.

Similarly, if you think that you are warm and friendly, and your friends and family say even if you think along those lines, you don't come across that way, you might pay more attention to your behaviors.

"I believe I've presented evidence that should make people think twice," Vazire says. "On average, the people who know you best know you as well as you know yourself, no better, no worse than you. More importantly, there are things that both you know that they don't know, and things that they know that you don't know, and those lead to very interesting experiences and disagreements."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100226093235.htm

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